`God the Midwife'

The Bible is full of various images of God. Dr. Mary Donovan Turner, a Disciples of Christ biblical scholar, wrote a book detailing some fifty-one different images of God in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) alone.

One particularly surprising image in the Bible is God as midwife. God is pictured doing the midwife's work of getting a baby safely delivered into the world and into her mother's arms where she could be safe and secure and nourished.

Now usually, the midwife's work is done once the child is delivered safely into the arms of the mother, but God, the midwife, continues the caring all through life, even into old age. Isaiah 46:3-4 says, “Listen to me, O house of…Israel (and please regard yourself as included in God's words here), Listen to me, O house of…Israel, who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age, I am [your God], even when you turn gray, I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.”

Again and again, through our lives, God oversees the labor as some new thing is given birth in our lives (or in our lives together) and God carries us further into the fullness of life God intends. All the way through life, even when we begin turning gray (even when we are completely gray…as I am now), God is there midwifing, bringing us into the next stage of life God has for us.

We hear something similar in Deuteronomy 1:31, where Moses tells the ancient people of Israel, “In the wilderness…you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as one carries a child, all the way that you traveled until you reached this place.”

This midwife, like God, carries us along into each new place in life.

My friend, Rev. Sandhya Jha, in her wonderful devotional book, Liberating Love: 365 Love Notes from God, suggests that God speaks these words to us, “For tens of thousands of years, when your ancestors faced their hardest times, I carried them. During your hardest times, I carry you…, gently holding you throughout the journey. And I continue to carry you…just as I carried all of Israel out of bondage and into liberation. My arms are that big and my love is that great. Today simply imagine me carrying you and all of your people into a better place.”

I am not entirely sure of the nature of the labor the midwifing God is overseeing in my life, let alone in your life, but I am sure that God is present in whatever painful, stressful, uncertain circumstances we may be facing, and God is doing something life-giving and will carry us forward into something new and even more loving than we know now.

I am confident that the midwife-like God is lovingly at work in each of our lives, carrying us along at each stage of our living…and will so carry us until God finally delivers us all safely into life eternal. Thanks be to this gracious and loving God.